World Woman Festival 2015: No school in Britain free from sexualised bullying, warns leading imam

Alyas Karmani claims schools are reluctant to admit they have problems for fear of critical Ofsted reports

Alyas Karmani, a Bradford imam, says male role models ‘simply reinforce misogynistic views’ (AP) (AP)

Sex education is failing our young people and there isn’t a school in the UK where you don’t find sexualised bullying, a leading imam has warned.

Alyas Karmani, who preaches in Bradford and is a director of the Diversity Project, a youth scheme, said: “Young men are growing up thinking violence against women is normal. They are treating women as objects. There is no counter-argument to this and no access to positive role models.”

The imam, who was speaking at the World Woman conference in Oslo, said the young people he works with are “immersed in pornography and getting their sex education on the street”, with male role models simply “reinforcing misogynistic views”.

“Sexting is endemic” and schools were reluctant to admit they had sexual-bullying problems for fear of critical Ofsted reports, he claimed.

“Sex education does not teach about trust and respect and consent,” he said. “This is also about the trivialisation of rape… when young men have sex without consent, they don’t think it is rape. Nobody has spoken to them about how unacceptable this is.”